Assets

Thus currently the Digitalis Open Transactions server also only features those two types of assets.

It is planned, however, that a deeds type of asset will also be implemented, which will be radically different because deeds will refer to non-fungible items such as vehicles and real-estate: items of which each instance is distinct and possibly very different from other instances.

Currencies

Many of the currency type assets on the Digitalis Open Transactions server are tokens that represent, without any fractional reserve, cryptocoins that exist on blockchains.

The symbols used for such assets consist of the usual three-character symbol of the cryptocoin, with a lowercase letter d prefix.

For example, the symbol for the tokens that represent BiTCoins (BTC) is dBTC.

Similarly the symbol for the tokens that represent DeVCoins (DVC) is dDVC, the symbol for the tokens that represent GRouPcoins (GRP) is dGRP and so on.

Stocks (Shares)

How are digicoins e.g. dDVC (digiDeVCoins) different from actual coins e.g. DVC (DeVCoins)?

The difference between DVC and dDVC is similar to, but hopefully more reliable than, the difference between a dollar in your pocket or wallet and a dollar balance at a 100+% reserve bank.

It is similar to the difference between a weightless-and-teleportable (transferable over the internet like a bitcoin) gram of gold and a balance of one gram of gold at a 100+% reserve goldbank or e-gold or pecunix type of operation.

Basically in order to issue dDVC, or dBTC, or dIXC etc etc etc I first have in an actual wallet, on the actual blockchain, some number of actual blockchain based coins, then I issue onto the Open Transactions server a number of digicoins equal to the number of actual coins I am freezing for use as tokens on the server.

Ideally those frozen coins should never ever be un-frozen, that is, they should never ever move on the blockchain, until such time as I foresee no future use/need for the corresponding type of digicoin.

Thus for example I have 210 million actual DeVCoins. I have issued onto my server 210 million corresponding digiDeVCoins. Someday, or some year or century or decade, I or my heirs and assigns could decide that there is no future expected need of any digiDeVCoins. For example it could be decided not to continue to run any Open Transactions servers. At such a time, the digiDeVCoins would either be bought back on the server using some other assets on the server (if only digiDeVCoins are never again to be needed) then the digiDeVCoins un-issued to free up the frozen actual DeVCoins; or (if the entire server is never again to be needed) the digiDeVCoins would be bought back from properly identified users using the actual DeVCoins (at one to one exchange rate but probably with some volume-based fee, so that I only need deal with maybe even as few as one properly identified customer from whom I buy back all the digicoins at no fee, or from two properly identified customers at tiny fee, or from many properly identified customers at however much fee is needed to make it do-able to process that many properly identified customers).

In other words the digicoins - the tokens on the server - do represent actual coins but ideally those actual coins “never” actually move unless in some final extremis point at which the entire family of tokens-of-that-type is to be un-issued to release the actual on the blockchain coins again.

This has been explained over and over again on various threads posts etc about the server.

The idea is that the tokens do not involve “hot wallets”. Any “hot wallets” are over and above the coins represented by the tokens.

Thus ideally a hot wallet operator aka a market maker aka an in-out exchanger buys digicoins aka tokens on the server and sells digicoins aka tokens on the server as an entirely distinct and separate operation from the vault operator / vault operation aka stone cold frozen wallet operator that is custodian of the real coins that the tokens aka digicoins represent.

This results in a 100+% reserve, since at all times each and every digicoin represents one whole actual real coin on the blockchain, totally independent of any “hot wallet” operations that do in and out exchange getting people in and out of the server's markets/accounts.

A possibly unfortunate side-effect of this means of operation is that the fatness of the transaction pipeline on the server is not dynamic. A person cannot “deposit 500 million devcoins” resulting in their being 500 million more digidevcoins on the server. There are so far only 210 million digidevcoins on the server because I in my capacity as stone cold frozen wallet operator aka vault operator only have frozen 210 million devcoins for the purpose of issuing digidevcoins on the server.

If people could simply “deposit” more devcoins to cause more digidevcoins to come into existence that would be a weak point in the system, it would be effectively kind of a hot wallet, or certainly nowhere near as cold a stone cold frozen wallet. If people could withdraw similarly, that would be a super-weak point in the system.

Part of the point of stone cold frozen wallets was the problem of how to secure blockchains. Coins that never move on the blockchain need not worry so much about low difficulty blockchains, because the coins could, for example, be frozen years in advance, allowing years of hard coded checkpoints in the coin clients to have been put into place since the coins were frozen, so that the coins represented by the tokens could be coins from ancient times, so utterly secure that the current difficulty of the chain could even be basically irrelevant to the security of those ancient coins.

Darn I was gonna make a 'one does not simply “deposit” 100+% reserves' meme but the first meme site google found wants me to log in and I have no login records of whatever site I used for that in the past so presumably it was one not needing a login. Oh well. Maybe someone else can whip one up, plus maybe a 'one does not simply “withdraw” 100+% reserves' meme…

The idea is that I in my logically totally distinct and separate capacity as a market-maker or in-out exchanger or hot-wallet operator, or, even better, third parties in such roles, would buy and sell the on-the-server tokens for on-blockchain coins, and that if ever a day comes when the actual frozen coins ever do end up having to move (which will presumably be when all tokens representing that type of coin are to be discontinued, no future use for such tokens being expected/foreseen) only those special entities would need to go through any kind of “know thy customer” and/or “anti money laundering” stuff because only those few entities would be the actual “customers” of the server. Everyone else would, as far as the server is concerned, simply be aliases, nyms, accounts, alter-egos, customers, clients etc of those market-making operations not of the vault operator.

Hopefully also a side-effect, if vast quantities of coins end up being “frozen” so that digicoins can be issued, could end up being that over time more and more of a given coin are “frozen forever” in vaults aka stone cold frozen wallets to back tokens on servers, thus driving up the price of blockchain based currencies that are widely used / used in volume on such servers.

For example there are already 210 million devcoins that will “never” actually be used on the blockchain (until such time as there is not perceived to be any future need for trading devcoins on my Open Transactions server).

Potentially another possible advantage of this means of operation could be that it could make it easier aka more do-able for various kinds of “insurance” to be layered onto the system.

For example since there are “only” a “mere” 210 million digidevcoins to worry about, one or more large holders of DeVCoins could step forward offering to “insure” users of digidevcoins against any kind of disasters such as a comet wiping out not only me but all copies of my private keys, so that even if for any reason I ended up not being able (or, heck, even willing, if providing confidence in the server is important enough to such large holders of devcoins) to hand over actual devcoins for people's digidevcoins users nonetheless know they could still get actual devcoins for their digidevcoins…